Intel is already working on 48-core chips, but don't expect them anytime soon

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Computer chip manufacturer Intel is already working on a 48-core processor, which would change the way we use smartphones and tablets.

As well as its saving battery power - by assigning individual tasks to specific cores rather than having to share the workload - features such as speech recognition and augmented reality on mobile devices would evolve.

Intel told Computerworld how even watching a high-definition video would be improved, as different cores would be able to decode individual frames, leading to a more seamless viewing experience.

Current smartphones and tablet devices are usually restricted to dual or quad-core processors, which limits the performance levels of mobile devices.

"Typically a processor with one core would do jobs one after another," explained Enric Herrero a research scientist at Intel Labs. "With multiple cores, they can divide the work among them."

However, although Intel says it is working on 48-core chips for smartphones and tablets, it would appear we won’t be seeing them for between five and ten years.

One of the reasons for this delay is that developers will need to create apps that are capable of handling a processor of this magnitude.